How to Develop Guidelines for Arctic Tourism’ was the title of a conference hosted jointly by the WWF Arctic Programme and the Norwegian Polar Institute in Longyearbyen, Svalbard 20–22 January 1996 and held at the recently established University of Svalbard. All 43 participants were by invitation only and the majority were from Svalbard itself. About a quarter of the participants were tour operators, with most of these from Svalbard, but others came from Norway, Sweden, Germany and the UK. A number of academics, polar researchers and tourism researchers from Europe and the USA were also present; one of them, Peter Mason, reports on the proceedings.